Global: Chile taps rich talent among the poor

After 30 years' studying the eternal question of how to broaden access and participation in higher education without dropping standards, Chilean academic Francisco Gil has come to what seems a disarmingly simple conclusion: "Academic talent is equally distributed across all of the social strata."

The rector of Chile's Silva Henríquez Catholic University (UCSH) in Santiago came to the Talloires Network Leaders' Conference in Madrid on 14-16 June to explain to his colleagues why this is so.

In many developing countries enrolments in secondary education have increased sharply in recent years - in Tanzania participation rates have increased five-fold over the past 10 years, in Venezuela they have doubled. Although capacity in higher education has also expanded, it cannot possibly keep pace with such strong growth and so universities are forced to become more selective.

"In Chile, only 10% of young people who finish secondary school go on to university, so this begs the question which 10% will get to go?" asked Gil. "Is it the richest, the poorest, the most intelligent?"

Comparing the university entrance examination results of secondary students from private and public schools in Chile has shown that, although results vary per student, those who are privately educated score consistently higher than those from public schools and proportionately more of them go to university. Similar results are to be found in most countries around the world.

This might lead you to believe that the privately educated can also be expected to perform better at university, but Gil's research shows otherwise.

In 1992 the University of Santiago started experimenting with broadening access by giving students from poorer backgrounds extra points in the university entrance exam so that proportionately more of them entered higher education.

After following some special catch-up courses they found that these students performed up to four times better than students from private schools with the same scores in entrance exams, Gil said. "We studied them to find out why and found that they were much more motivated than the others - they loved studying, they read more for instance," he added.

Now at the UCSH, Gil started wondering what would happen with students from backgrounds so poor "that they did not even appear on our charts". Working with Unesco, in 2007, his team designed a six-month preparatory programme aimed at students in their final year of secondary school which took place at the university. It covered subjects such as mathematics, language and personal development. One hundred per cent attendance was made obligatory, with failure to attend a single session automatically leading to exclusion.

Gil is unapologetic about this tough regime. "Let's not fool ourselves, just being poor is not an academic merit, what has merit is to be an outstanding, hard-working student from a poor background," he said. High dropout rates of 34% were a problem during this first experimental year, but when parents were encouraged to get more involved during the second year of the scheme, the dropout rate dropped to just 10%.

Gil is realistic about what you can achieve with such a short course of training. "In six months you can develop a sense of personal responsibility, but you can't undo the effects of 12 years of poor quality education," he said. "These students have lots of gaps, they have to study really hard in the first year and we can't do it for them."

In their first year at university, these students typically performed worse than others but, by the second, they were performing just as well.

The preparatory programme has since attracted the attention of other universities. In 2009, two more institutions started offering the course and in 2011 there are 10. Gil believes other universities are keen to join in as they are all struggling with the same dilemma - how to broaden access without dropping academic standards.

At UCSH, these students benefit from grants co-funded by the Chilean government which means they pay no tuition fees during their first year. During the following years, they are offered student loans to cover this cost. "This is the best thing we can do for them," said Gil. "These are kids who are lost to society in our country. If you give them a chance, you can improve social inclusion and social peace. But that is not all, these are often brilliant students and they can move the world...it is not about letting in poor students, it is about letting in talent," he added.

Views from Tanzania and Ireland

In Tanzania, as in Chile, it is the better-resourced schools with more resources which tend to produce students who score highest at university entrance exams and who therefore have a better chance of accessing higher education, said Joseph Kuzilwa, vice chancellor of Mzumbe University. Since the Tanzanian government began passing on some of the cost of secondary education to parents in 2003, including a system of student loans based upon performance, access to higher education has become less equitable, he believes. For Kuzilwa there are lessons to be learned from the example of Chile. "But my concern is that intervention may be coming too late as poverty will have already had its negative effects," he said.

Ireland experiences similar issues of unequal access to university, but has adopted a different approach. Irish universities have a policy of positive discrimination and set aside 5% of university places for talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds. What started as an ad hoc initiative 15 years ago has evolved into a fully-fledged programme supported by all seven of Ireland's universities, according to Tommy Cooke, head of community links at Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT).

Last year 80 students started at DIT via this access route by coming in for a special week's induction course in September. They got to know their future colleagues and became familiar with the environment before returning home. "They come back with the other students totally anonymously so everybody, including lecturers, is only told of their different status on a need-to-know basis," said Cooke. "These students tend to do as well, if not better, than others as we get 15% better retention rates than with 'normal' students," he added.